I really like the ACTC. They have a nice variety of rides of varying difficulty. The newsletter is online ( www.actc.org ) so you can look it up and get a feel for the kinds of rides that are held.

My husband and I joined fairly recently & we took the ACTC academy partly as a way to sort of ease into the club, we're not very good at just showing up, neither of us are particulary outgoing sorts.

The academy is run very very well, I highly recommend it - even though we had both been riding for some time we've still learned a great deal. They have a really nice, helpful bunch of instructors (including, I might add, our friend Ms. Snapdragen!) Hubby & I have enjoyed it so much we're both planning on helping out on future academy sessions - the next one starts in February, I think.

Our "graduation" ride is a 100K ride around Gilroy on the 23rd of this month, which will include the delightful jaunt up to Gilroy Hot Spings (which nearly did me in at the ACTC Tierra Bella ride this past spring, hopefully I'll do it a bit more gracefully this time around )

hope this helps, - Jo.